I had a Super Bowl party last night, but I really should call it the Super Bowl commercial party. Whenever an ad came on the crowd was hushed and intently watched the commercial. OK, maybe I shushed everyone, especially during the ads for job boards.

This year’s funny one was Career Builder’s parking lot commercial where a bunch of monkeys, aka coworkers, wedge a poor employee into his car. The tag line was: “stuck between a bad job and a hard place.”

It was funny, but it got me thinking about all the people I’ve been talking to lately who would take any job right now, even a bad job. (more…)

I’m all for using cyber social media to have fun and connect with friends, but Twitter is not Facebook.

The whole point of Twitter is you connect to the world at large and not just people you knew in college. Because of Twitter’s global paradigm, Twitter rants and Twitter stupidity can come back to haunt your career or your job search. Everyone from entertainers to average working stiffs have to watch what they say.

Did you know that the Library of Congress is actually archiving Twitter tweets? This is serious stuff folks so you need to be serious all the time, not just some of the time. Hiring managers don’t distinguish between your professional tweets and your not so professional tweets.

That’s why I advised a Twitter follower this morning not to tweet what you don’t want to be seen. She asked if she should only post her professional tweets on her LinkedIn page. (more…)

UPDATE BELOW

If you haven’t heard about the homeless guy with the golden voice, you’re missing out. Ted Williams had fallen on hard times and ended up living on the streets, but a chance encounter with a journalist changed his life.

Now Williams is the hottest ticket around, making the rounds on all the talk shows and inundated with job offers. Many of you have read his story and are hoping for an equal chance at turning your lives around, or just landing a job. I’ve already gotten emails and Twitter tweets from desperate job-seekers out there wondering how they can get their instant break. But Williams’ good fortune, if it lasts, is not the job norm. (more…)

The unemployment rate for December is coming out this morning, and whether it goes up or down people who are looking for a new job should be focusing on the job search not statistics.

There are endless things you should be doing to land a job, but one strategy that makes a lot of sense is focusing on what you can do for the company instead of what the company can do for you. That’s advice from Tina Chen, director of operations for Carlisle Staffing who suggested you look at your job search as job dating.

Surely the best relationships are those where both individuals bring something to the table. What do you have to offer your date? And I’m not talking about your body but your mind. If you’re looking for a one-night stand, don’t read on.

“Because there is such a large candidate pool, potential employers can really cherry pick who they want to bring into their organization,” she contended. “Employers are no longer just looking for ‘qualified candidates’ but rather, looking for those who will go above and beyond to justify their seat. The days of working at the bare minimum to earn a paycheck is over. Employers are well aware that if someone doesn’t work out they can replace that person quickly and easily so job seekers need to really stay ahead of the curve and lay their best assets on the table.”

It’s a crummy reality I know but it seems to be the job reality market of today.

So how do you convey the value you can bring to an employer? (more…)

College students, grads and alums are often dogging university career centers. I get that. Some of them can be pretty lame.

But there’s a chance your college’s career center might be worth at least one visit or a phone call. What’s wrong with getting some free help? It could actually be helpful, or actually help you land a gig.

My intern Mikala will soon graduate from the University of Delaware so she decided to check it out. Here’s her first blog post for CareerDiva sharing her experience: (more…)

Last week we got a bunch of pretty crummy economic news. The jobless rate stayed at 9.6 percent in September, and it’s been over 9.5 percent for more than a year now. The last time that happened was during the Great Depression.

Lots of people are looking to the Federal Reserve to help give the economy a boost, but the reality is, no matter what is done in the near term, it will be months at least before the job market starts to show signs of life. That means your job search is going to suck for the foreseeable future.

Lately I’ve been getting lots of emails from readers who feel they’re in a job-hunting rut. Many of you are tired of the rejections, tired of sending out resumes, and just tired of waking up every morning having to look for a job.

So, how do you get yourself motivated in this market, especially if you’ve been looking for months? (more…)

If you want a job today, you have to bring more to the table than a degree and experience.

Can you sing, juggle, tap dance? If so, it might help you land the job you want in Corporate America.

Turns out video killed the boring corporate climbing star.

In the digital age, companies are doing what ever they can to promote their services and products on the web, and more and more firms are realizing video is one of the greatest tools to do that. And few firms have the money to go out and hire real talent. So, they’re turning to a great resource — their own employees. I did an MSNBC column on how employers are using workers as company promotors a while back.

(Hey, even the CareerDiva has been trying to do more videos.)

Rebecca Corliss was hired by Hubspot, an Internet marketing company, in late 2008 not because of her resume but because of her singing talents. (more…)

Next week we’ll be into September, and I know a lot of you have been waiting for the fall to arrive so you can really crank up your job search.

For some reason, no matter how old we get, we all seem to be on a school time clock. We sort of go into lazy mode in the summer, whether we have been in the work force for years or just graduated.

You shouldn’t kick yourself over this. The summer is typically a slow hiring season, and this summer was particularly crummy.

Since I won’t be blogging as much as usual this week, I didn’t want to leave you all in a lurch.

So, I figured I’d include a host of job-hunting article links here for you guys to look over in the meantime. Some stories are written by me and others are written by career folks I respect: (more…)

I check in again with Al Kemp, a family man who lost his job during this harsh recession and is struggling to find his way.

Here’s a link to his previous post right after he was laid off and the challenge of explaining that to his daughter; and here’s his post about the job-seeking struggle.

He’s found work but it’s not what he expected, and alas, not quite what he wants.

He calls this installment “Gimme Shelter”: (more…)

During these past two years of hard economic times, lots of employers have been behaving badly and they know it.

They’ve been working lots of you to the bone, treating you pretty crummy and in many cases ethics have gone out the window.

According to a report released this week, many executives knew exactly what they were doing to workers and now they’re worried a bunch of you are going to abandon ship once the economy turns around. And why shouldn’t you?

Deloitte’s fourth annual Ethics & Workplace Survey paints a sad picture of corporate America. (more…)